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Saturday, November 22, 2008

The Birth Certificate Issue Will Not Die

The American people may have been fooled into believing that Sen. Barack Obama possesses the constitutional qualification to be president of the United States, but the people who are convinced Obama lied to the American people about meeting the natural born qualification aren't going away. Non-believers ran a full page ad in the Washington Times this week demanding answers to the questions the media refuses to make Obama answer. The ad cites the claim of his paternal step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, that she was present for his birth in Kenya, Obama's own refusal to produce a valid, original birth certificate proving his birth in Hawaii and Indonesian school records identifying him as an Indonesian citizen with the name "Barry Soetoro".

An online signature drive has been launched, which has already garnered signatures of nearly 40,000 Americans, is petitioning the 2008 electors to the Electoral College, Congress, the Federal Elections Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, President George W. Bush and state election authorities to enforce Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution by requiring Obama to prove he is a natural born citizen. Multiple lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts across the country challenging Obama's qualifications under Article 2, Section 1. Every single ruling to date has dismissed the claims of the citizen petitioners on the basis that they lack standing to bring a claim. Former American Independent Party presidential candidate, Alan Keyes, and other members of his party have filed a lawsuit in California attempting to force the Secretary of State there to deny certification of Obama's electors until Obama proves he is a natural born citizen. There is a precedent in California in the past for the Secretary of State to actually remove a third party presidential candidate from the ballot on the ground that the candidate was not constitutionally qualified because he had not yet reached the age of 35 based on his official birth certificate.

Dr. Ron Polarik, a computer graphics expert, appeared this week on Janet Folger's Faith2Action radio talk show and explained his analysis of the certificate of live birth posted on Obama's "Fight The Smears" website and FactCheck.org, which purport to prove Obama's birth in Hawaii. He concludes unequivocally that it is a forged document. He says the two separate postings of the COLB on these sites is actually a compilation of someone else's 2007 COLB and a 2008 COLB. I encourage you to visit Faith2Action's website, where you can download and listen to Polarik's analysis. Polarik is not deterred by the Hawaii Department of Health's confirmation that it has a birth record on file in Hawaii. Hawaiian law at the time allowed a parent to register a birth which may have actually taken place outside the state if the parent claimed to have resided in the state for at least one year prior to the child's birth.

The way I've always viewed this issue is that every candidate for president of the United States should be forced to prove that he or she is at least 35 years of age and is a natural born citizen. Oddly, there is no formal requirement that a candidate for president comply with the constitutional requirements other than to make attestations to that effect. Obama himself is a stickler to such legalities. After all, he challenged the validity of the petitions filed by his four primary opponents, including a long-time state senator, the first time he ran for public office. He succeeded in having all four opponents bounced from the election ballot, allowing him to run for his first office unopposed. Obama could have put this issue behind him months ago by simply producing the original birth certificate. Why won't he? John McCain did.

If it's not enough that Obama may have presented a forged birth certificate to fool the media and the American people into believing he was born in Hawaii, there are also questions about whether he registered for the Selective Service System when he reached the age of 18. This issue was supposedly debunked earlier this year when evidence of Obama registering for selective service back in 1980 surfaced; however, new evidence seems to suggest that Obama's supposed 1980 registration didn't make into the Selective Service System's database until this year. That's right, the document location number (DLN) indicates the record for his 1980 registration was created in 2008. A retired federal agent, J. Stephen Coffman, explained his efforts to find out Obama's SSS status in a recent e-mail to me:

What is interesting is that when I first contacted the Selective Service about Senator Obama's registration not showing up on the "Check A Registration" section of their website (www.sss.gov) they said it was because he probably used a different name then Barack H. Obama or a different Social Security Number or date of birth. The registration that they evenually sent me shows the name Barack H. Obama and the same date of birth that I used. So that does not make any sense as to why his registration was not online prior to September of this year. You have to have the Social Security Number to use that function. It would be a privacy issue to release it.

Initially, I was not given a copy of his registration card because of claimed privacy issues. I pointed out that his name and date of birth was in the public domain. I also stated that if they could not provide me with a copy of the form, then my FOIA should be considered to include all correspondence (including, but not limited to emails) sent or received by the Selective Service. Seems they did not want to give me the emails. So they gave me the form.

I am not against the Selective Service. I recently re-enlisted in the Reserves (I have over 26 years Active and Reserve service). So I sent my concerns about the registration form to the Selective Service. They declined to comment. So after a few weeks, I forwarded it to Debbie.

Anyone can request the same document from Selective Service by sending a FOIA. There should not be any delay as they have it readily available - especially with the Document Locator Number.

Apparently, the database for the Selective Service System is maintained in Chicago, leading some to speculate that a friend of Obama's accessed the system unlawfully to correct the potential embarrassment, not to mention what would be his own criminal law violation in failing to register, if that proved to be the case. I registered for the Selective Service System when I turned 18 not too long after Obama purportedly registered. I was also appointed as a member of my local Selective Service System board when I was only 18. A year ago I recounted a story about how that came about after a chance meeting with an Illinois power broker, William Cellini, in my state senator's office:

I was interning in a local state senator's office in 1981 when Mr. Cellini stopped by to visit the state senator. After the senator and Mr. Cellini visited for awhile, I was invited into the senator's office and asked if I wanted to be a Selective Service Board member. "Am I old enough," I asked. With that, at the age of 18, I was appointed a member of the local Selective Service Board in my area when it was reconstituted after being abolished many years earlier. It later made a headline in the Charleston Times-Courier when a reporter called me up and asked how I got appointed to the Board and I told the reporter exactly how it happened. Red-faced, I called up Mr. Cellini and apologized for the headline. He told me it wasn't a problem and not to worry about it. Later, I figured out it was exactly the kind of publicity he liked getting.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago just recently indicted Cellini in its ongoing investigation of corruption within Illinois state government. Cellini is accused of mail fraud in what federal prosecutors claim was a conspiracy to extort money from state pension fund managers to benefit Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Do I believe it's possible that someone could have illegally post-registered Obama? You bet I do. I still don't have a clue after all these years why the hell Bill Cellini had anything to do with who was appointed to local Selective Service Registration boards in Illinois. If someone solves that mystery, please share it with me.

12 comments:

If you want to check your own registration online, go to http://www.sss.gov/records.htm.

You will need to enter your social security number, your last name and date of birth.

Interestingly, I looked up mine. It says I registered on January 21,1981. That is not the day I registered at the post office in my town. I was flying back from Washington, D.C. that day with my parents after attending President Reagan's inauguration. I recall registering on or right after my 18th birthday about 7 weeks earlier. Whoever entered my registration in the system must have put the date on which it was inputted as opposed to the date I registered in person at the post office and which would have appeared on the form I filled out.

Hey, on the Obama charge that he didn't register for the draft and thus committed a crimminal act: what was your reaction to Bush's crimminal conviction for a DUI? What was your reaction to Cheney's conviction for 2 DUIs? Let's see, the GOP has 3, count 'em THREE, crimminal convictions between them. Since here we have actual crimmnal convictions (and imagine if that had been the case with Biden and Obama), as opposed to allegations, what is your reaction? I"m sure you consider yourself a fair person who treats all sides fairly regardless of political affiliation, so here is your chance to show it.

And we're suppose to think more highly of Obama because he didn't get caught smoking pot or crack cocaine as he admits to frequently doing in his autobiorgraphy when he was younger? Or what about the dozens of unpaid parking tickets he ignored while going to school at Harvard until he decided to run for president decades later. Do you think he disclosed on his bar admission application in Illinois past illegal drug use or his unpaid parking tickets as he would have been required to do if he had filled out his application honestly?

Haven't you figured it out yet, downtown indy? None of the rules which apply to everyone else apply to Obama. He's The One. He's the Messiah. He can take $300,000 bribes from political fixers in Chicago, break all of the FEC rules like taking money from foreigners and ignorning indidividual campaign contribution limits, not meet the constitutional requirements for being president, et al. When you're The One, you can do whatever you please.

AI, you have NEVER been able to prove one of your charges against Obama......isn't it time to get off the birth certificate etc and express your legitimate disagreements with his policies. That is what opposing political parties do.

Oh, I'm just testing the level of hypocrisy, i.e. we'll focus on the "crimes" of Obama, while ignoring actual crimminal convictions (you know, the kind where you show up in court and get a guilty plea) that do exist for Bush and Cheney. As I expected, the hypocrisy is substantial (defined as: you get all huffy about a democrat's alleged crimminal actions but offer no recrimminations for a republican's actual crimminal convictions {multiple at that - I can just imagine the glee if Obama-Biden had 3 DUI convictions between them}), but I did want to offer a fair chance for you to prove me wrong. As I try to avoid the sin of hypocrisy, I am prepared to denounce all crimminal convictions of both Barack and Biden. Oh, wait, there aren't any. Does that mean I think that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are better people than George Bush and Dick Cheney because of that?Well, I am glad for my latest slogan:"Hey, at least my guys are not convicted crimminals!"Personally, I believe that politicians of all stripes, liberal and conservative, play hardball, skirt the issues, and cross legal and ethical lines. It's just that Obama is at least a cut above the politicians that have been running things lately, so when someone wants to give him a hard time I like to see if they apply the same standards to Bush-Cheney. They never do, of course. It's been a chuckle watching the contortions of those implying that Obama is somehow worse than the political disaster we've just lived through. But who knows, maybe Barack will leave us with 2 unwon wars (as in Afganistan), 2 mismanagaed occupations (as in Iraq 2003-2006), 2 prisons filled with kinky torture (as in Guantanamo), 2 hurricane disasters ignored (as in Katrina), 4 terrorists attacks on US soil (as on 9/11) and 2 financial meltdowns (as in Wall Street 2008). I doubt it, but maybe I'm just an optimist.

jbarg, I'm not sure if you read this blog closely or not. If you did you would realize that the editor here is often much more hard on his criticism of Republicans than Democrats.

Be careful of being so partisan that you refuse to see the problems and wrongs within your party. There are lots of problems with Obama.

It should greatly trouble you that we know little to nothing about Obama's college years, nor has the public seen the birth certificate we demanded. Why is he hiding it? If he was a legit citizen, wouldn't he just show it to us and put it behind us?

Fair enough. We all have hobby horses we ride, and if you're open to the idea that the GOP might be as screwed up as Democrats, then I will proffer the peace pipe and admit that it is distinctly possible that a Democrat will be as screwed up as a Republican. I will hold very tightly to the facts at hand - it's just my nature I guess. That is why I will challenge Advance Indiana (whom I grant is open minded enough to post my responses) when he bashes a president that hasn't even taken office - as if someone who hasn't had the chance to do anything can remotely compare to someone who has had 8 years in office. In my opinion, that borders on bizarre, or at least silly. Give the guy a chance, at least. On the birth certificate issue, I agree that Obama should offer it up. Now, I don't think there is something bad there and I won't offer any reason why he hasn't yet. I've learned that there always is a reason or motive and 9 out of 10 times it ends up being something mundane and not something horrific. I just can't leap into the dark side of life no matter what the political idealogy is being skewered. I like to stick to the concrete - I hope I do with my criticism of Bush-Cheney (quite frankly the worst president since Watergate). In mulling it over it appears that a judge is going to have to rule that a state's electoral college reps can't vote until Obama gives up the origial document. Personally I'm all for it - make him hand it over. And finally, I don't understand the "we know little to nothing about Obama's college years" comment, though that is admittedly minor. To be blunt with all the mystified right wingers, the reason why the Ayers-Wright-Rezko stuff didn't stick is that the contention didn't match Obama's personality. "He's a terrorist lover. He's a hater of white America. He's a corrupt money grubber." And the average voter, watching the cool and collected junior senator dispatching Hillary Clinton and then John McCain, decided that he was none of the above.

I thought this was a germane editorial comment I read:"Many of the people who voted for Barack Obama were doing so as an act of faith; they were not voting for his past record (which was quite liberal) or his past achievements (which were, by the usual standards for selecting a President, fairly minimal). Friends of mine who are lifelong Republicans voted for Obama because they were impressed with the quality of his mind, his manner and approach, and the discipline of his campaign. They believed that if he were elected President, he would act in a prudent, responsible, non-radical way. But they readily admitted they weren’t sure what we would get; Obama, more than any other presidential candidate in recent memory, was an unknown quantity and something of a mystery in terms of how he would govern. I found myself going back and forth on Obama, sometimes in the course of a single day.

It’s far too early to make any kind of firm judgment on President-elect Obama; he has not even taken the oath of office. People who are viewed as strong picks at the outset of an administration can, in retrospect, look bad. Managing a team is harder than selecting one. And the acid test for Obama, as for all public officials, will be the policies he pursues and the actions he takes while in office. For example, my suspicion is that Obama will, in the areas of the courts, culture of life, and health care, take actions that conservatives will view as quite problematic. And I would prefer a stimulus package which reduces tax rates on individuals and businesses, which is the best way to increase productivity and wealth.

But for now, those who did not vote for Mr. Obama have reasons to be somewhat hopeful about the direction in which he appears to be heading. His actions to date are not those of an ideologue. If this trajectory continues - and it cannot be said often enough that we are only at the dawn of the Obama era - America’s new President may pleasantly surprise conservatives and agitate the Left. He just might turn out to be more like John Kennedy than George McGovern. It remains an open question; but right now, that possibility is reason enough to be grateful." Pete Wehner, Commentary

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